Our Beliefs

Short Declaration of Faith

• We believe the Bible to be the complete Word of God, that the sixty-six books, as originally written, comprising the Old and New Testaments were verbally inspired by the Spirit of God and were entirely free from error; that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice and the true basis of Christian union.
• We believe in one God, Creator of all, holy, sovereign, eternal, existing in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• We believe in the absolute and essential deity of Jesus Christ, in His eternal existence with the Father in pre-incarnate glory, in His virgin birth, true humanity, sinless life, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, triumphant ascension, mediatorial ministry and personal return.
• We believe in the absolute and essential deity and personality of the Holy Spirit who convinces of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement, who regenerates, sanctifies, illuminates, comforts and abides in all who believe in Jesus Christ.
• We believe that Satan exists as an evil personality, the originator of sin, the arch-enemy of God and man.
• We believe that man was divinely created in the image of God; that he sinned, becoming guilty before God, resulting in total depravity, thereby incurring physical and spiritual death.
• We believe that none but those who exercise repentance from sin and faith in the lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, and that salvation is by the sovereign grace of God; that by the appointment of the Father, Christ voluntarily suffered a vicarious expiatory and propitiatory death; that justification is by faith alone in the all-sufficient sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and that those whom God has effectually called shall be divinely perfected in the image of the Lord.
• We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ; in the resurrection of the just and unjust; in the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and in the judgement and conscious, eternal punishment of the wicked.
• We believe that an ideal Church is a company of believers who have been baptised, called out from the world, separated unto the Lord Jesus, voluntarily associated for the ministry of the Word, the mutual edification of its members, the propagation of the faith and the observance of the ordinances. We believe it is an autonomous body in a particular locality, exercising its own divinely awarded gifts, precepts and privileges under the Lordship of Christ, the Head of the Church. We believe that its officers are Pastors (Elders) and Deacons.
• We believe that there are two ordinances for the Church regularly observed in the following order:
  • Baptism, which is the immersion of the believer in water, whereby he obeys Christ`s command and sets forth the washing away of sins and his identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection
  • The Lord`s Supper, which is the memorial wherein the believer partakes of the two elements, bread and wine which symbolise the Lord`s body and shed blood proclaiming His death until He comes again.
• We believe that God has ordained marriage as a heterosexual relationship between a natural man and a natural woman.
• We believe that the proclamation of the gospel is the mission of the church and that people all over the world needs to hear the message of Christ Jesus.

Theology

We hold a Reformed Baptist position with regards to doctrine (Theology), salvation (Soteriology) and church life (Ecclesiology). We did not come to these positions by accident; we can trace our linage back through many centuries of historical christianity. We are linked to the Particular Baptists of England and Wales of the 19th and 20th Century, non-conformists of the 17th Century, through to the Reformation of the 15th and 16th Century, back to Augustine, the early church fathers and eventually the teaching of the Apostles.

Our defining moment historically came in 1689 when the 2nd London Baptist Confession was accepted by the church as a clear confessional statement of what Reformed Baptists believe. This document is a slight variation on the Westminster Confession of 1642 (mainly on the topics of church government and baptism). Although we don’t view the 1689 Confession as divinely inspired, we do value it as a systematic summary of our beliefs. It clearly reflects the 5 cries of the Reformation: Sola Scriptura (Word Alone), Sola Gratia (Grace Alone), Sola Fide (Faith Alone), Solus Christus (Christ Alone), Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone). Shore Baptist Church has a church constitution wherein our membership principles and responsibilities are set out.